The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making

by Adrian Johns

Overview

In The Nature of the Book, a tour de force of cultural history, Adrian Johns constructs an entirely original and vivid picture of print culture and its many arenas--commercial, intellectual, political, and individual.

"A compelling exposition of how authors, printers, booksellers and readers competed for power over the printed page. . . . The richness of Mr. Johns's book lies in the splendid detail he has collected to describe the world of books in the first two centuries after the printing press arrived in England."--Alberto Manguel, Washington Times

"[A] mammoth and stimulating account of the place of print in the history of knowledge. . . . Johns has written a tremendously learned primer."--D. Graham Burnett, New Republic

"A detailed, engrossing, and genuinely eye-opening account of the formative stages of the print culture. . . . This is scholarship at its best."--Merle Rubin, Christian Science Monitor

"The most lucid and persuasive account of the new kind of knowledge produced by print. . . . A work to rank alongside McLuhan."--John Sutherland, The Independent

"Entertainingly written. . . . The most comprehensive account available . . . well documented and engaging."--Ian Maclean, Times Literary Supplement

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226401225
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	05/15/2000
Edition description:	1
Pages:	776
Product dimensions:	6.60(w) x 5.60(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Adrian Johns is the Allan Grant Maclear Professor of History at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Death of a Pirate: British Radio and the Making of the Information Age.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
A Note on Conventions
1: Introduction: The Book of Nature and the Nature of the Book
2: Literatory Life: The Culture and Credibility of the Printed Book in Early Modern London
3: "The Advancement of Wholesome Knowledge": The Politics of Print and the Practices of Propriety
4: John Streater and the Knights of the Galaxy: Republicanism, Natural Knowledge, and the Politics of Printing
5: Faust and the Pirates: The Cultural Construction of the Printing Revolution
6: The Physiology of Reading: Print and the Passions
7: Piracy and Usurpation: Natural Philosophy in the Restoration
8: Histories of the Heavens: John Flamsteed, Isaac Newton, and the Historia Coelestis Britannica
9: Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

Larry McMurtry

Adrian Johns has written a fascinating, bold, and original book. Neither as a reader, a writer, or a bookseller will I ever think simplistically about the nature of the book again.

Anthony Grafton

Adrian Johns's compulsively readable study transforms our understanding of the history of books. . . . Johns's lively prose, fascinating stories, and provocative arguments should win many readers and cause much debate.

Paula Findlen

Adrian Johns brings to life the people who made, quite phsically, the books that made the knowledge of the scientific revolution. Does it matter that Newton was published by a pornographer? Yes, if one wishes to understand the marketplace for books and knowledge in the early modern era.

Editorial Reviews

"A compelling exposition of how authors, printers, booksellers, and readers competed for power over the printed page. . . . The richness of Johns's book lies in the splendid detail he has collected to describe the world of books in the first two centuries after the printing press arrived in England."--Alberto Manguel "Washington Times"

"A detailed, engrossing, and genuinely eye-opening account of the formative stages of the print culture. . . . This is scholarship at its best."--Merle Rubin "Christian Science Monitor"

"A mammoth and stimulating account of the place of print in the history of knowledge. . . . Johns has written a tremendously learned primer."--D. Graham Burnett "New Republic"

"Entertainingly written. . . . The most comprehensive account available . . . well documented and engaging."--Ian Maclean "Times Literary Supplement"

"The most lucid and persuasive account of the new kind of knowledge produced by print. . . . A work to rank alongside McLuhan."--John Sutherland "The Independent"

From the Publisher

A mammoth and stimulating account of the place of print in the history of knowledge. . . . Johns has written a tremendously learned primer.

New Republic - D. Graham Burnett

A detailed, engrossing, and genuinely eye-opening account of the formative stages of the print culture. . . . This is scholarship at its best.

Christian Science Monitor - Merle Rubin

A detailed, engrossing, and genuinely eye-opening account of the formative stages of the print culture we now take for granted....This is scholarship at its best.
— Christian Science Monitor

Merle Rubin

Transports readers back to early modern England and the cauldron of creative and commercial forces in which print culture was formed, focusing on the interplay between the scientific and print revolutions and on their roles in the production and dissemination of knowledge. Looks at the culture and credibility of the printed book, the politics of printing, the mechanics of book production, and conflicts of intellectual property. Includes b&w illustrations. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Booknews

A scholarly investigation of printing's early cultural history in England. In 1979 Elizabeth Eisenstein published a massively influential book entitled The Printing Press as an Agent of Change. Books, she said, enabled a stable and fixed culture of learning that uniquely facilitated the rise of scientific knowledge-making. Now Johns (Sociology/Univ. of Calif., San Diego) aims to revise her findings in his own learned (if exaggeratedly contentious) study of books and publishing in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. In contrast to Eisenstein, he argues that a multiplicity of competing and idiosyncratic cultures of print emerged during that era and that the conditions of knowledge were far from uniform. While Johns concedes it to be true that printed books stabilized texts and led to a degree of fixity in available knowledge, he proposes that a variety of cultural contingencies undermined what in retrospect has seemed to be the objectivity of early modern scientific thought. Not least among these contingencies were the rampant and labyrinthine practices of book piracy, a circumstance that undermined the authority and authenticity of print. Johns also suggests that different printers and booksellers developed different models of accrediting and appraising the trustworthiness of books. Much is made of the lively rivalries among the various factions, and the fates of various scientific books and writers are explored in copious detail, including those of Sir Isaac Newton, Tycho Brahe, and others. It is Johns' overall strategy to emphasize the cultural and social factors that shaped the realm of the printed word, and in particular to underline the role that the mobile concept of "trust"(as opposed to verifiable fact) played in defining the culture of print that has come down to us. Relying on detailed knowledge of original texts and a magisterial view of the enormous secondary literature, Johns has written a fine-grained study with considerable force of argument.

Kirkus Reviews

The most lucid and persuasive account of the new kind of knowledge produced by print. . . . A work to rank alongside McLuhan.

John Sutherland

A compelling exposition of how authors, printers, booksellers, and readers competed for power over the printed page. . . . The richness of Johns’s book lies in the splendid detail he has collected to describe the world of books in the first two centuries after the printing press arrived in England.

Washington Times - Alberto Manguel

Entertainingly written. . . . The most comprehensive account available . . . well documented and engaging.

Times Literary Supplement - Ian Maclean